


stones at the starlight

by mywordsflyup



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Antiva City, Antivan Dalish, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, F/M, Healing, Trespasser DLC, Trespasser Spoilers, Wycome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-04-21 07:11:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4819943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mywordsflyup/pseuds/mywordsflyup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She kneels in front of him and even through the pain and the hurt and all the confusion, the irony is not lost on her. Finally, he has played his cards, shown her his hand. And she knows. She sees him now, perhaps clearly for the first time.</i>
</p><p>Lavellan, looking back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously MAJOR SPOILERS for the Trespasser DLC.

She kneels in front of him and even through the pain and the hurt and all the confusion, the irony is not lost on her. Finally, he has played his cards, shown her his hand. And she knows. She sees him now, perhaps clearly for the first time.

_He sat at her feet sometimes, his head resting lightly against her knees as she read to him. One hand always reaching for her, interlacing his fingers with hers._

_“Would you not be more comfortable up here with me, lethallin?” she asked him in those early days, still finding her footing around him._

_He smiled at the word and closed his eyes. “I am quite content with my current position, I assure you.”_

No, the irony is not lost on her.

 

Another wave of pain rushes through her, bright and sharp. She can feel it now just as she has felt it for months. Her bones are breaking, her skin ripped to shreds. The Anchor is tearing her apart like it once tore apart the sky.

There is no shame in her cries. Not in front of him.

“Drawing you here gave me the chance to save you,” he says and crouches in front of her. “At least for now.”

She grits her teeth and with her other hand, the one that still belongs to her, she wipes the tears and the snot from her face. “You know I will never give up,” she says. “If I live I will come after you." Another flash of pain threatens to overwhelm her. But if she does not say it now she never will. "Because you are wrong, Solas. You are wrong and I will make you see.” Every word cracks her lips and cracks her heart.

“I know you will.” There is sorrow in his eyes and a weight on his shoulders. The raw power radiating from his body does nothing to cover up the tired lines around his eyes and the corners of his mouth, twisted in agony.

“Ar lath ma.” She says it because it is true, even now. Even after everything. It changes nothing.

“I know, vhenan.” The word is enough to have her reeling and the look on his face as he straightens back up tells her everything she needs to know. “Take my hand,” he says, gently as always, and she does.

She remembers it all.

 

_They danced, just like they did at the Winter Palace. But it was different now, all alone in the privacy of his rotunda, with no music but her own humming. His hand splayed across the small of her back as he pulled her close and she laughed when she saw the glee in his eyes. A sound like a bell trailing all the way up to the rookery and pearling off the high walls. He took her hand and she curled her fingers around his._

_“You sing well, vhenan,” he said and she laughed once more, just a little bit embarrassed._

_“A blatant lie but I thank you nonetheless.” She smiled. “The music is mostly drums anyway. You would like it, I think. Even though it is Dalish.” The grin she gave him was positively mischievous. “It is very… wild.”_

_At the last word, he raised his hand and let her spin slowly. Once, twice, before falling back into his arms. Her right hand found the soft slope of his shoulder and she found comfort in the way he shivered when she ran her thumb over the exposed skin of his neck._

_“I would like to hear it one day,” he said and her heart leapt, even at this small commitment. “But until then…” He pulled her close once more. “Until then I think I’d rather hear you sing.”_

_Her laughter was cut short by his kiss and his hands on her hips, on her waist, in her hair. She balled hers into fists against the soft fabric of his tunic and was lost in the swirling colors around her._

 

“Take my hand,” he says and she does.

And when the pain leaves her, so does he.


	2. Chapter 2

Lavellan does it herself in the end. After everything, it seems a small thing to do. And the pain is nothing compared to what was before.

It is a simple spell, straightforward and brutal. She has used it before on the battlefield. Cut through enemies like a knife through butter. Now she uses it on herself. Cuts the ties that bind her to something too broken to be healed.

She stops the bleeding and leaves the hand behind. A darkened rotten thing, doomed since the moment she picked up the Anchor.

When she stumbles through the mirror, the others are waiting. Her family, now. Her clan.

She remembers little but Bull’s large hands catching her as she falls and the wide expanse of his chest as he holds her close.

“It’s alright now, boss,” he says and his voice ripples through her like her own heartbeat. “You can let go now.”

She does.

 

_With Solas, even the Fade seemed less daunting. She did not fear the dark when he led her there, his hand solid and reassuring in hers. He tread the winding paths with confidence. Every step slow and deliberate. She envied him for his fearlessness, the way this world molded itself around him._

_“Have the Dalish taught you to fear this place?” he asked, sensing her discomfort before she even said a word. There was small steep line in between his eyebrows and she longed to smooth it out with the tip of her thumb._

_“No,” she said instead. “Not them.” And then nothing more as the Fade around them shifted._

_“Ah,” he said, understanding._

_She led him through the streets of Antiva City. Back alleys and dark corners. In her memories, it was almost always nighttime, the moons high and bright above and the cobblestones below still warm from the evening sun. It would not last, she knew. The nights were cold. Cutting winds from the sea rushing inland._

_“It was better to move during the night,” she continued the thought out loud and Solas nodded because he saw what she saw. Felt what she felt. Small figures darting through the shadows. Big bright eyes gleaming in the darkness. The locals called them Cats and that was what they were. Scrappy and scared and always on the run. “During the day, you got to sleep. But during the night, nobody cared if an elven child went missing around here.”_

_“Slavers?” Solas guessed and at the sound of this voice, the eyes around them vanished like startled animals._

_“Tevinter. The Crows. The Brothels.” She ran her fingertips over the rough facade of the building next to her. “Take your pick.”_

_All the things she had almost forgotten. The smell of salt and sea and spices. The cries of the seagulls at the harbor and the quiet whistle of the Cats in the alleys. The warm light of the lighthouse, a beacon against the black nothingness of the ocean beyond. In the Fade, they all came back to her._

_She felt his eyes on her and turned around. “You are surprised.” It was not a question. “That I wasn’t born Dalish, I presume?”_

_He ducked his head but not fast enough to hide his smile. “You speak so highly of them.”_

_It was an old argument, never quite resolved. But he was not here to argue, she realized. He was here to listen. For her, she knew and just for a moment, a heartbeat, she thought that she could love him. The words remained unspoken._

_“They gave me everything when I had nothing,” she said. “For an orphan mage child there is no place but a shallow grave around here.”_

_He took her hand and the city around her shifted once more. A gentle pull, a single step._

_“Come,” he said and she followed._

 

At the end of the day, the world is changed again. One word of her is all it took. Disbanded.

She does not allow herself to dwell on it, not now. At the edge of her consciousness she can feel the abyss, the uncertainty of future days. But there is no time for the pit in her stomach or for the spinning thoughts of losing everything.

All that comes later.

They lead her down to the dungeons. Two tall guards in Orlesian armor, as impractical as it is shiny. With every step down the stairs, the gold and blue of the Winter Palace recedes and gives way to naked stone and mortar. There is no point in deceiving those who end up here.

The dungeon is damp and dark and despite the bows and formalities, she cannot help but feel a small pinch of panic as the guards leave her behind in front of the cells. Their footfalls recede in the distance and she forces herself to take deep breaths of stale musty air.

The spy in the cell in front of her shows no fear. Her blonde hair is disheveled and her hands are black with dirt as if she tried to claw her way out of this place herself. But she is calm, her back straight and hands folded neatly on her crossed legs. She is still wearing the armor of the Inquisition scouts, the sunburst eye on her chest gleaming in the low light.

“An’eth’ara, Inquisitor,” the spy says. No pretenses, then. Her accent is thick and clumsy, as expected from someone who learned the language at a later age. But she lifts her chin defiantly, daring Lavellan to make a move.

“What is your name?” she asks instead, stepping close enough to wrap her fingers around one of the iron bars. The spy’s eyes flick to the pinned up sleeve on her left and raises her eyebrows just slightly at the sight.

“He took it, didn’t he?” There is a breathy kind of awe in her voice that sets Lavellan’s teeth on edge. “The mark from your hand?”

“Among other things,” she says and then repeats her question. “What is your name?”

She blinks at her, pulled out of her composure for just one short moment. “Katia,” she answers finally, her mouth twisting around the harsh human sound.

“You were his spy,” Lavellan says.

Katia cocks her head to the side, a sly smile on her lips. “Ah, you come too late, Inquisitor. Leliana’s people were already here to... ask me questions.”

The meaningful pause hangs heavy in the air between them and Lavellan thinks of the dirt crusted around Katia’s splintered fingernails. Only that it might not be dirt after all.

“Those weren’t my orders,” she says. She knows it is a stupid thing to say and Katia’s laugh scolds her for it almost immediately.

“Mhm,” is all she says, leaning back against the grimy wall behind her cot. “Isn’t that just the crux of the matter?”

Lavellan’s grip around the iron bar tightens just slightly, anger coiling in her stomach. “I don’t want information,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady. “I just want to know why.”

Katia only looks at her, jaw set and expression unreadable. She was one of Leliana’s people once, there is no way to deny it. “Why?” she echoes warily.

“Why work for him? Why spy for him?” She swallows. “Why follow him down this path?”

There is a long pause, the silence only interrupted by the sound of dripping water and the creaking of wooden beams above. Finally, Katia leans forwards, resting her elbows on her thighs. “Have you ever been to an Alienage, Inquisitor?”

She can feel laughter bubbling in her chest, almost hysterical, and pushes it down as best as she can. “I grew up in one.”

The surprise on Katia’s face vanishes as quickly as it appeared. Leliana has trained her well. Or perhaps someone else has. She looks at Lavellan, eyes big and bright in the light of the torches. “Then you shouldn't have to ask.”

 

_Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware of her body. Soft sheets underneath her. His forehead gently pressed against hers. Their breath intermingling in the small space between them._

_But she was also here, the expanse of the Drylands in front of her, stretching to the horizon and beyond. The sun shone mercilessly down on her and she pulled down her hood to shield her face from the bright glare of the light reflected from the sand and pale rocks below. Just a blink of an eye and she felt the familiar fabric of her old clothes draped over her body. Wide soft trousers. Her shawl embroidered with a hundred tiny suns. Her feet wrapped in straps of Quillback leather to protect them from the burning sand._

_The dry hot winds were almost unbearable so far from the sea and with the sun standing so high in the sky. She felt the familiar burn of thirst at the back of her throat._

_“There is no need,” he said and there was the sensation of his fingers brushing against the small of her back and his breath along the slope of her shoulder. Even when she could not see him, he was never quite gone. “It is not the waking world, vhenan.”_

_A word so new and brilliant like a sip of cold water after a long journey. It settled somewhere next to her heart, a tiny reassurance safely tucked away._

_“Will you come with me?”_

_“Of course.”_

_She made her way down the slope into the valley, a slow and careful descent even here. Knowing that everything around here, from the scorching sun to the jagged rocks under her feet, was nothing but a product of her memories did not change the way her heart beat faster at the sight of her home._

_“They say this is a cursed land,” she said. “The Fourth Blight bled the country dry. Nothing but dust and ruins now.” She smiled and felt his encouragement like a hand brushing against hers. “But I loved it from the very first moment.”_

_It was a dried riverbed whose twists and turns she knew well. Not far from here, her clan used to make camp, sheltered from the winds and the sun by a large rock formation on the bank. She had not been here in years. What a marvel the Fade was with him by her side. Only the absence of her kin reminded her that all of this wasn't truly there._

_“I had no name when I came to the clan,” she said as she trod over the cracked earth. “I was nobody. Just rage packed too tightly into the body of a child. The clan gave me their name as my own and let me choose the other.”_

_“Sylda,” he said. She heard it so rarely spoken now, all but vanished behind the titles. When he said it, it sounded like more than a name. A softly spoken benediction._

_“It is what the Dalish of these lands call these little tokens.” She made a vague gesture with her hand, struggling for the right description. “Like stones or pieces of glass that have been formed by the water. They would look for them in these riverbeds and use them as charms for good fortune.”_

_“You can show me,” he said and she found that she could._

_There was a shard of glass in her hand, a deep dark green thing glistening in the sunshine. It lay perfectly smooth in her palm and when she looked up she found him standing there, ready to take it from her. He looked startlingly strange in this familiar scene but his hands around hers felt more solid than anything around her._

_“Sylda means ‘something from nothing’. It was what I longed to become.”_

_The sorrow on his face for a child he never knew tugged at her heart almost painfully. She reached up with her free hand and gently cupped his face._

_“If they have given you this, perhaps I have misjudged the Dalish,” he said quietly, leaning into her touch._

_She smiled and was delighted to see it returned in the slight tug at the corner of his lips. “Perhaps.” That would be enough, for now. “They have taken my rage and turned it into fertile ground. To grow, not to destroy.”_

_She so desperately wanted him to see what she saw in her clan. The kindness they had taught her. Warmth and stability and home instead of everything she knew before._

_There was sadness in his eyes as he bent down to press his lips against her brow. “I see you,” he said, his breath warm on her skin. “Is that not enough?”_

_And it was. For a while._

 

She takes the keys from the hook on the wall and walks over to the cell door. For the first time since she has entered the dungeon, Katia watches her with something akin to fear in her eyes.

“I will not hurt you,” she says and bristles at how easily she comes to this conclusion. People fear her and after everything, she is not even surprised by it. She who has cut down gods and danced with others. Who crawled from the depth of the Fade. Who was broken a thousand times just to grow back stronger. She who yet lives to tell the tale.

_(“I’m just curious to see what kind of hero you will be.”)_

She unlocks the cell door and swings it wide open before taking a few steps back. Katia does not move but every muscle in her body is taut.

“What are you doing?” she asks, thick accent slipping back into her speech.

“I am not going to lock up my own people.” Lavellan takes another step back.

Katia gets up from her cot and slowly moves towards the open door. “If you let me go, I will just find my way back to him.”

“Perhaps. But his way is not the only way. This path he is on, it leads to nothing but death and destruction. If you follow him that is where he will lead you.”

Katia scoffs and the sound echoes from the bare walls. “You say this as if we weren’t standing in the belly of the beast. All of this grandeur built on stolen ground, watered with the blood of our people,” she sneers and steps out into the hallway. “And you among them as if you belong. Everyone knows what happened to your clan. Everyone knows that you let it happen. You are as much one of us as any of these shems in their shiny armors and fancy dresses.”

Every word like a knife to the heart but none she has not whispered to herself at night before. “His way is not the only one,” she repeats. “This world does not have to burn for it to be reborn.”

“The world is already burning, Inquisitor. You are just the last one to notice.” With that, she vanishes into the shadows and Lavellan does not have the words or the energy to stop her.

Exhaustion rolls over her like the incoming tide and she clutches at the iron bars next to her to keep herself from sinking to her knees.

 

_“Harden your heart to a cutting edge,” he told her, after everything else was said and done. She had never hated him more._


	3. Chapter 3

She dismounts and leads her horse out of the shade of the trees. The clearing opens up before her like a deep breath, a wide green field peppered with wildflowers. Wind is tangled between the high fir trees around them, fruitlessly tugging at the dark tops. As she takes a few steps forward, the grass underneath her feet is still wet with dew in all the spots the sun has yet to reach.

Wycome is still half a day’s ride to the west, a promise at the end of the old merchants’ road she has followed for the last couple of days. But it has never been her true destination, not really.

Dorf has always been a calm and trusting mare, from the very first day Lavellan had dared to get into the saddle. But even she balks a bit when they step out into the clearing. Just a light whicker but Lavellan threads her fingers in her grey mane and tries her best to make a calming noise.

The Veil is thin here. Not dangerously so but enough to feel it prickling on her skin, chasing goosebumps up her arms and spine.

It has been three years and nature has reclaimed this site but the threadbare Veil still sings of violence and death. Of blood that soaked the earth like rainwater. She feels her knees tremble as it tugs at her with clammy hands.

Other than the Veil there is nothing to indicate what happened here. No graves or markings. No young trees sprouting to new life where another life was taken. No trace of the Dalish at all. She heard they piled up the bodies and burned them. The thought is enough to make her sick.

“Stay here, girl,” she says softly and lets go of the reins. Dorf stays behind as she moves further into the clearing, high grass brushing up to her knees.

She still uses his spells to fall asleep. They taste of him, heavy and moss-green. Sometimes, when she curls up on the ground, she feels his absence like a ghost right behind her. Hands that are not there anymore brushing over her hip and shoulder. Warmth that will not come pressing against her legs and back. She misses him most then, with the smell of the wet heavy earth in her nose and the grass tickling her bare feet.

She still uses his spells. And they work as well as ever.

The first thing she notices is the smell. Spices and leather and fire. The smell of home. She knows when she opens her eyes it will all be here again. Not really, but real enough.

Even without the Anchor, the Fade opens up to her like the pages of a well-read book. She sits up and finds herself in the shade of the red billowing sails of an aravel. If she focused enough she would be able to hear the wind tugging on the fabric. If she focused enough she would be able to hear anything she wanted. But it’s not what she’s here for.

She expected a battle and finds a regular morning instead. She always liked those the most. The camp just waking up, still soft and quiet around the edges. She never thought she would see it again. It is all here, throwing grey shadows in the morning light. The aravels, the fireplaces. The halla. There are people, too. Shapes and whispers, just clear enough for her heart to hurt at the sight. They call out to her, laughing and beckoning.

_We knew you’d come back to us, lethallan. Sit and eat with us. Tell us of your travels._

As she walks through the clearing, a gaggle of children passes her way. Only wisps of laughter and mischief like an errant gust of wind. She presses her fist against her mouth to keep herself from crying out.

She continues her way to the heart of the camp, marked by the tall mast of the Keeper’s aravel. The memories are clearer here. Faces she recognizes. Smells and sounds that call her home. And there, next to the fireplace, the one person she would know anywhere.

“Hahren,” she says and her legs feel too weak to carry her all of a sudden.

Deshanna looks like she always did. A beacon of light, too bright and enticing to look away. Lavellan felt like a moth when she first came to the clan, drawn to the Keeper from the very first moment. This tall woman with the deep dark skin and the easy smiles was everything to her. Everything she wanted to be. Strong and kind and unbroken. Even now the few strands of white in her hair and the way she leans on her staff are the only hints at the years that passed since their first meeting.

The rest is just as she remembers it.

A slow smile spreads across her Keeper’s face, so solid and real that Lavellan feels her heart skip a beat. _It’s still the Fade_ , she has to remind herself. _None of it is real._

And the Keeper…

“You are not like the others,” Lavellan says and steps closer. “And you are not her.” Speaking the words out loud helps. It anchors her in what she knows is real.

Her body, lying on the ground underneath the swaying high grass. The clearing. The trees. Dorf. No graves to find. Just ashes.

“Da’len,” the being wearing her Keeper’s face says and the word rushes over her like a soft breeze. The smell of fir needles is stronger here. Mixed with something sharp and ancient that she cannot quite place. “I did not mean to deceive you.”

Lavellan takes another step. She knows she should be wary but she cannot help herself. “I know.” This is true, at least. The being wears her Keeper’s face but it did not try to present itself as anything other than what it is. The center of this part of the Fade. The one holding this illusion in place. “You are a spirit.”

It earns her a smile, proud and full of approval. The one she knows so well. “I am. Will you sit with me? Just for a little while?”

She does, against her better judgement. The grass underneath her fingers is soft and the heat of the fire warms her face. “Are you drawing from my memories or are you drawing from theirs?”

The spirit makes a small humming sound. “A little of both, perhaps. Your presence makes things… sharper.”

There is laughter in the distance. Voices, the sound of aravels being unloaded. The quiet huffing of the halla. _None of it is real._

“Why are you here?”

“They called to me, right at the end,” the spirit say. “They called for help. For mercy. So I came. There was nothing I could do but watch. Death came for them anyway.”

Lavellan swallows and digs the fingers of her left hand into the soft earth. The hand that should not be there. “I expected something else.”

“I keep it this way. It is the only form of mercy I can grant them now.” The spirits lifts its hand, the Keeper’s hand, and makes a gesture that encompasses the entire camp. “This is the morning before the humans came. You will find now fear or pain here. It is all I can give.”

There are others around the fire now. Shifting faces, names she has almost forgotten. Kye, with a child on her hip and another tugging on her sleeve. Elaria, stringing her longbow. Sahal and Felan, deep in conversation with her hands clasped and their eyes gleaming with laughter.

“They are all going to die.”

“No,” the spirit says. “They are already dead.”

It helps, somehow. Lavellan forces herself to look away. If she stays too long, she is lost. She knows this now. “Thank you,” she says and nothing else because there is nothing else to say.

“Why did you come, da’len?” The spirit looks at her, genuine curiosity plain on the familiar face. “What did you hope to find?”

“I don’t know.” And that is also the truth.

“You blame yourself.” It is not a question, not really.

Lavellan laughs, despite everything. “I am not the only one.” Her fingers dig deeper into the ground. Dark earth underneath her fingernails. “They are dead and I am not. It’s not so complicated.”

“And yet you come here. Seeking something, surely. Answers, perhaps? Penance?” There is a hint of frustration in the spirit’s voice that would be almost comical in any other situation.

She shrugs. “Whatever it is, I don’t think I can find it here.”

Once again, the spirit makes that humming noise. “Maybe you are looking in the wrong place. You will find nothing but the little mercy I can give. And underneath, if you dig long enough, the death of your people.”

“It is all I have left.” She pulls her hand out of the soil and finds it clean. “All that is left of them.”

“Ah, I see.” The spirit laughs, a sound altogether too real and solid for this place. “This is where you are mistaken, child.”

She looks up. Her chest feels tight all of a sudden. “What do you mean? They told me my clan was wiped out.” She needs to hear it. She needs the little seedling of hope in her heart to be crushed before it can grow into something more. Something that would destroy her.

The spirit smiles her Keeper’s smile. “Oh, humans and their absolutes.”

 

* * *

 

_She had never seen him like this. His whole body relaxed, his movements wide and languid. And when he pulled her into the little alcove underneath the overgrown pergola in the gardens, his lips tasted of sweet wine._

_“You’ve been drinking,” she said, a little surprised and a little bit out of breath as his hands gripped her by the waist and pulled her close._

_He made an affirmative noise against the skin of her throat and followed it with a kiss that made her arch into his touch. When he held her like this, she could almost forget where she was. Could almost forget the disgust she felt for this place. That she had somehow thought he would feel the same._

_But here he was, completely happy. Almost giddy, as he pulled her up into another kiss, even hungrier than the last. His hands, usually placed with so much restraint, could not seem to touch enough of her - always roaming, always searching. She had never pushed him for more. Always been happy with what he was willing to give. But now he would devour her in the gardens of the Winter Palace if she would have him. Altogether too bright, too hot. Brimming with life and with glee and with magic that tugged at hers like his fingers tugged on her clothes._

_“Solas,” she said, her voice not as strong as she would have liked. “Solas, stop.”_

_He did. Of course he did._

_Whatever hidden part of him she had glimpsed at - old and dark and dangerous - there had never been a sliver of doubt in her mind that he would stop if she told him to. She didn’t understand this trust, new and unfamiliar as it was to her. But she did not doubt it._

_He stepped back, his hands by his sides and his ears turning dark. “Forgive me,” he said. The shame in his voice was enough to almost make her regret her words._

_“There is nothing to forgive.” She reached out to slide her hand into his and was glad that he didn’t pull away. “It’s just… Not like this.” She suddenly felt embarrassed. Not for him but for herself, so flustered by these matters._

_The air around them was heady with the smell of roses, almost too thick to breathe. She wanted him but not like this. In this place that smelled to sweet and tasted so rotten. Not when she could not be sure he wouldn’t regret it in the morning when the wine had worn off and the intoxicating excitement of the ball was nothing but a fading memory._

_She tilted her head and kissed him, soft and sweet and innocent. She thought she understood the sadness in his smile when she really didn’t understand anything at all._

_Later, when they stepped over the pools of blood in the servants’ quarters, his hand found hers as it always did. Just the slightest squeeze. Supportive and reassuring. With just the amount of restraint she had become accustomed to._

_The elves looked young in death, broken bodies tossed on the stone floor. She knelt down to close the eyes of a boy at her feet and her fingers came back stained with blood. He was a child, no older than twelve._

_“They did not have to do this,” she said, clenching her fists as she got up._

_Solas stayed quiet, his body still and umoving. Just for a moment, she hated him for his silence. Ice spreading up her spine and curling itself around her ribcage. She carried it with her into the next fight, and the next and the next. And he stayed right behind her, silent and sober, like she knew he would._

_Later still, when the day was saved for the high and mighty and she washed the blood from her hands with far too much expertise, he was the first to find her._

_The gardens once more but he was sober, with his hands behind his back and his face expressionless. “The festivities are almost over.”_

_Neutral ground for her to step on if she chose to. Instead she dipped her hands back into the water of the fountain, letting the cold rush over her exposed wrists and clear her head._

_“Good,” she said._

_She felt him walking up behind her, keeping his distance but close enough to touch. “They were looking for you. Josephine in particular.”_

_“I’m really not…”_

_“I suggested to look for you in a different part of the palace.”_

_She exhaled, slowly and controlled. “Thank you.”_

_“You blame yourself,” he said after a moment and his words dropped into the silence like stones into a pond._

_She turned around and leaned back against the fountain. Her legs felt to tired to hold her up on their own, her muscles aching from more than just the fighting. “How could I not?” She held his gaze because he let her. “I dance and drink and bow before the empress while they are slaughtered and discarded like cattle. How can I say I stand for them like this? How can I claim to speak for them when I still feast with their enemies at the end of the night?”_

_“As with most things, it is not so simple.” There was pain in his expression and just a little more tension in his shoulders than usual._

_“Isn’t it?”_

_He frowned. “You think dying with them would change anything? You are doing what you have to do. Is it not the destination that counts, no matter how ugly the journey?” There was something almost pleading in his tone._

_She looked at him. “Sometimes I think I’m so far gone, I cannot see the end of the road I’ve chosen.”_

 

* * *

 

The Wycome elves are suspicious - as they should be. Too many empty houses tell the tale of what could happen if they weren’t. But there is no vallaslin on her face to give her away and she traded in the tailored clothes of the Inquisitor for something simpler long ago. It still takes her two days and a purse worth of discreetly slipped coins to find out what she needs to know.

Wycome isn’t Antiva City, but it’s close. The Alienage is crammed and dirty, ramshackle houses lining the dusty streets. The distrust is almost palpable, like the scent of cheap booze and piss in the air, and it doesn’t take one hour before she catches the first cutpurse trying to rob her. But at night when darkness falls over the quarter, a hundred little lights light up high up in the branches of the vhenadahl. It’s magic, she is sure of it. Gently bobbing orbs illuminating the square and calling the people from their homes. She stands at the edge in the shadows and watches them share food and stories. Sometimes a voice arises from the mass in one of the old songs, melodies that should have been forgotten long ago.

She does not need to know the words to join in and they let her. At night, she is one of them. A scrawny lonely thing once more, drawn in from the cold. They share their bread and their light and lead her where she needs to go.

There are five of them. Five. It’s all that is left of the once great Clan Lavellan.

She rushes to the woman sitting by the fireside immediately. A face she thought she’d never see again. The years have not been kind to either of them. Grief and gout have turned Lathlyn from the proud huntress of Lavellan’s memories into an old woman. Her face is weathered and her knuckles swollen but the eyes with which she musters Lavellan are still sharp.

“Da’len”, she says and pulls her from the ground. “You have returned.”

“You are alive.” Lavellan buries her face in the fabric of Lathlyn’s coat, still on her knees at the old woman’s feet. Her legs will not carry her. Every bone in her body too tired at the end of the road. “Creators, you are really alive.”

“In a way.” Lathlyn cups her face with both hands and forces her to look up. She runs her thumbs over her cheeks, over marks that are no longer there. “Oh, da’len. What have they done to you?” There are tears in her eyes and when she sees the stump of Lavellan’s left arm, she shakes her head, sorrow plain on her face.

“War demands sacrifice,” Lavellan says.

“They have asked too much of you.”

“Nothing that I did not give them willingly.” There used to be shame in the memory. His fingers brushing over her skin. His magic prickling and cool until she stood bare-faced before him. Not anymore. Not after everything.

The others come to her, tentatively, not quite believing. Hunters like Lathlyn, only spared from certain death by mere luck. They tell the tale of how they came home from their hunt to find their clan burning. Destruction and blood and smoldering ashes were all that was left.

Hidden deep in the belly of the Alienage, they survived. Relying on the kindness of the city elves they had pitied all their lives.

“We have heard rumors,” Lathlyn says late at night, huddled in front of the fire. Shadows dance across her face, the stark lines of her vallaslin. “Elves vanishing in the night. Not taken but leaving on their own, never to return.”

“They go to him,” Lavellan says. She remembers Katia’s face, fading into the darkness.

“The one they call the Wolf?” Lathlyn’s gaze rest on her, calm and steady as she remembers it. “You know him.”

She nods. How can she explain that which is inexplicable? A god, or something like it, stepped out of the tales of her people, made flesh and blood and bones. Made fury and compassion and sorrow. Made love.

“They say he leads them to revolution,” one of the hunters says, a young man with copper hair and deep scars running across his face.

“He will only lead them to their deaths.”

“Is there any other way to go?” The hunter folds his arms, his mouth set in a tight line. “For us? For them?”

“Perhaps,” Lathlyn says. “If they had someone else to follow.”

 

* * *

 

She dreams and the wolf comes to her as it does every night. Keeping its distance, it watches her from the treeline. She sits down on the soft grass.

“Will you still not speak to me?” she asks. She does not need to raise her voice. She knows he can hear her.

No answer. She smiles and watches the wolf pace along the treeline, its fur dark in the shadows.

“And yet you come back, night after night. Your silence tells me nothing.” She looks at her left hand, unmarked and still intact. “I do not remember you being a coward, Solas.”

A heartbeat. She blinks and her hand is gone. No more illusions, even here.

“I would not make this harder than it needs to be.” His voice is so familiar, even after all this time. She looks up and there here is, as she remembers him. As she has seen him a thousand times.

“Harder for me? Or for you?”

He smiles but it does not distract from the sadness in his eyes as he sits down next to her. “For both of us, perhaps.”

It is familiar and strange at the same time, to have him here with her again. Like an old dream, one she dreamed a thousand times and of which she still cannot remember the ending.

“Why did you come now? After all this time?”

“I know what you are doing, vhenan.” The word still hurts, forever tainted, and she closes her eyes. “But this plan of yours? It cannot succeed.”

“Afraid your people are going to desert you and come to my side?”

“I’m afraid that you will lose yourself on this path you have chosen. There is so happy ending in this for you. Only heartache.”

She looks at him, sharply. “I know heartache, Solas.”

“I know,” he says, weariness in every line of his face. “I wanted a life for you. A happy and fulfilling life. Not this. You deserve better.”

She almost laughs. He has not changed, even after everything. “That is not your choice to make.”

“When I took the anchor, I thought that was what I was giving you. A second chance.”

“I find there is usually a prize to pay for your gifts.” Her losses hang in the air between them, unspoken. Undeniable. He looks away as if ashamed but there is only ash where her anger used to burn. She reaches out and places her hand on his. “I really did love you. I do not regret it.”

His smile is sad as he laces his fingers with hers. “Neither do I. I have many regrets but loving you is not one of them.”

“Good.” She squeezes his hand like she used to. “I’m still going to find you. Stop you if I have to.”

“I know you will.”

She thinks he is going to say something else but when she looks up he is gone. Her hand grasps nothing but soft grass. No familiar face beside her. No wolf among the high trees.

She is alone. It is time to wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Oh Wonder's "Landslide". 
> 
> _You fell down by the wayside_  
>  _Love locked in an overflow_  
>  _And you threw stones at the starlight_
> 
> You can also follow my [tumblr](http://damnable-rogue.tumblr.com) if you're interested.


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